In polling, what term describes how far the results may be from the actual opinion of the total population?

• A. Sampling bias
• B. Confidence level
• C. Margin of error
• D. Standard deviation

Answer: (C)

In polling, the margin of error captures how far the poll results may be from the true opinion of the whole population due to sampling variability. Since you’re surveying a sample rather than everyone, the estimate can swing a bit up or down. The margin of error is the range around the reported result (often shown as plus or minus a number of percentage points) that reflects this uncertainty at a given confidence level. It’s different from sampling bias, which would push results in a systematic direction, and from the confidence level itself, which is about how often the interval would contain the true value if you repeated the poll. It’s also not the standard deviation, which measures spread of data rather than the accuracy of an estimate to the population. So the term that describes this possible distance from the true population opinion is the margin of error.